Monday, October 31, 2011

Sixth release in the P.V. Presents Series and second album for Kings Of Belgium, Très Fort is a mixute of atomic jazz-punk-experimental-fusion-trash core music.

The band is again a trio : Pierre Vervloesem ( X-legged Sally, Deus, Flat Earth Society, A Group…) is on bass, guitars and sounds, while Gil Mortio ( Attica, Bruno Vansina…) is on guitars. This time drummer is the formidable virtuoso Swedish Morgan Ägren, from former Mats Morgan Band. He has been a drummer since age four and a Grammy winning musician on both sides of the Atlantic.At age seven he joined forces with ten year old blind keyboardist Mats Öberg in 1981. In 1988, still around their late teens, Morgan and Mats got invited to play with Frank Zappa for a few different projects in the US - just before Zappa passed away.
Morgan has climbed readers polls in various drum- magazines recently. In 2010 he was voted No.1 in Modern Drummers readers poll in the category "fusion".

The project is based on a free spirited musical approach.
There is no compositions as such, the music is therefore totally spontaneous
which makes it heavy, light, rageous...
depending on the moods explored by the band.
You can compare their way of working with the sound & method of
Meshuggah, John Zorn, Mike Patton, the Residents and Frank Zappa.

The Album was recorded in Morgan’s studio Annanstand near Stockholm on the 16th and 17th of April 2011, then mixed and mastered by Pierre Vervloesem in Brussels.

They intend to play live a lot in 2012 !

Every live performance will be unique and the result will be a new and innovative experience every time...

Digital release on the 30th of November 2011
Cd release on the 6th of January 2012

Monday, October 17, 2011

Check out the new video by Graeme Oxby- "Mistaken for a Dream" from "The Organ of Corti" released today on any digital plateform you like! Cd released early november in the world!
Vocals by Christine Hanson
Album by Dave Formula & Christine Hanson
www.facebook.com/formulahanson

pop and experimental music. She also gives master classes in workshop settings on both sides of the Atlantic.

Recent albums contributions have included:

Satellite Sweetheart the new solo album by Dave Formula, A Rose by Italian electronic musician Stefano Panunzi - with Thomas Leer & David Sylvian ,Waltz With Me by Norwegian musician Annbjorg Lien, Songs of Robert Burns by Eddi Reader, Equestrian by Neotropic, Colin

MacIntyre’s album Island, No Thyself by the legendary post punk band Magazine, and Kissin is the Best of A’- the new Bruce MacGregor & Christine Hanson collaboration.

Her own album The Cremation of Sam McGee received rave reviews, as did the successful live shows.

Dave Formula:

Is best known for his work with Magazine, long regarded as one of the most significant & influential British bands. Recently all their albums have been re-mastered by Sean Magee of Abbey Road studios and re-issued by Virgin EMI.

Along with Magazine cohorts John McGeoch and Barry Adamson, Dave joined Steve Strange, Midge Ure, Billy Currie in Visage for two very successful albums before leaving to concentrate on Strongroom Studios, London, which he founded in the mid 1980's.

He has been involved with synthesisers, electronics & live improvisation since the mid- 1970’s. Matt Wand, from Stock, Hausen & Walkman, provided additional electronics on Dave’s recent solo album Satellite Sweetheart.

The album features additional contributions from: Robert Wyatt, Corrine Drewery, Howard

Devoto, John McGeoch & John Doyle.

Dave rejoined his Magazine colleagues for five sold out shows in February 2009 to great critical response and in Summer 2009 Magazine played several European festivals and an acclaimed show at London’s Royal Festival Hall. The band closed the year with T.V. appearances on Later With Jools Holland and BBC Electric Proms.

In October 2011 Magazine release a new album - their first in 30years - followed in November by a nine day tour of the UK .

Saturday, May 21, 2011

"Silk-screened” documents another direction from French artist Philippe Petit, whose aim ito always surprise his listeners by releasing records which follow each other while not sounding the same.

For now he is taking us in a cinematic world of dense mixtures of acoustic instrumentation and digital filtering, swaying and unfolding in ways that blend together jazz, modern classical and post rock.

Pursuing a tradition he had started with his "Reciprocess" project, given away with The Wire magazine issue 301, Petit is benefiting from the talent of many of his friends-musicians without whom nothing could be possible and emphasising that according to him music is a collaborative affair.

PHILIPPE PETIT is interested in soundtracks; even if he creates original music he'd rather be introduced as a "musical travel agent" than a composer.

PETIT uses a computer to build up electronic layers, process acoustic and field recordings. To second the machine he likes to move various glasses, or percussive objects, and take advantage of vinyl material to fondle released sounds.

A journalist for various magazines and radio as well as a musical activist, PETIT has celebrated his 25th year of sharing his musical passions as the man behind the cult labels Pandemonium Rdz. and BiP_HOp.

Back in the late 70s Graham Massey founded Biting Tongues, one of the first No-Wave act on Factory Records. He then became famous for his Techno experiments under the 808 State moniker, which led him to second Bjork on her “Post” album. Graham is still one of the most renowned and active musicians in Manchester and works in Homelife and Toolshed.

http://www.myspace.com/grahammassey

Hervé Vincenti plays a Fender Jazzmaster and Gretsch guitar, developing graceful notes and varied melodies. Aside co-founding (w/ Philippe Petit) Strings Of Consciousness, Hervé was also a member of Foern-Set and had played with Luc Ferrari.

Jérome Paressant is a French musician who started playing Rock and then moved on to improv and Jazz territories, founded Abraxas Projekt and Downtao

http://jeromeparessant.com/

Andy Diagram paints soundscapes with his trumpet. He blends all sorts of colourful sounds, and then mixes them in his “echo chambers” along with the help of a harmonizer. In the last 20 years Andy's unique style has allowed him to join many bands such as Pere Ubu, Dislocation Dance, Pale Fountains, James, Honkies, Frank Black (Pixies), and permanently Spaceheads, and David Thomas' 2 Pale Boys.

http://www.myspace.com/adiagram

http://www.spaceheads.co.uk/

Oldman was created by Charles-Eric Charrier after his years touring and producing albums in the duo Man. Oldman has collaborated with many artists and musicians including Mathias Delplanque (LENA), Rob Mazurek, ABRAXAS PROJEKT, The Clogs... On this recording he is helped by Cyril Secq who is also known as Astrid and releases on Arbouse, Rémi Bellin and Ronan Benoit.

http://www.myspace.com/charlescoldman

Bela Emerson is an innovative and prolific performer of electric cello, electronics, tenor viol and musical saw, who creates passionate, evocative and spontaneous music of no definable genre. As well as collaborating widely with other musicians and artists, she has four solo releases (vinyl/CD); the latest one, "Hespera" appeared on BiP_HOp to great acclaim.

http://www.belaemerson.com

Belgian vibraphonist Els Vandeweyer began her musical career on the classical path, focusing on contemporary pieces and her works have been documented on various recordings.

http://www.myspace.com/elsvandeweyer

Perceval Bellone plays saxophone, clarinet and Tibetan bowls. He has studied electro-acoustic music, been active in improv scenes and managed to find a style both very personal and physical. He is an active member of Strings Of Consciousness.

http://www.myspace.com/percevalbellone

Raphaelle Rinaudo plays the harp, combing and messing up her strings cautiously knitting melodies that she later distorts by pulling the chords. The atmosphere thus carefully woven, cannot but convene the repressed temptation of the sirens’ song… Raphaelle also plays in the Pierre-Yves Macé ensemble whose albums have been released via Tzadik & Sub Rosa + is an active member of Strings Of Consciousness

It's been more than 25 years since Ulrike Haage had started the first European women's Jazz Orchester REICHLICH WEIBLICH and since then her piano has graced countless recordings.

The obvious reason to start a digital only series is to give a lot of people quick access to new and adventurous music - worldwide and without the usual time a physical release takes in production, planning, pressing and mailing, while also considering the fact that not everywhere in the world a good record shop supporting that type of music is available. The digital only series furthermore concentrates on home studio projects which might probably not tour. It will have complementary releases to physical releases, meaning bonus tracks or unreleased tracks that will not be on a physical release, but will only be on the digital one. Some of the music might eventually find a place on a physical cd, but as a single, Ep, or mini album.

sister + brother = musicmachine. the whole thing started in august 2004 due to blahblahblah and we both said tralalalala and then blahblahblah for some more trulalalala and then we finally discovered that via chachachacha that there could be blublablubla in a certain way to emphasize the structural/emotional fucking blahblahblah: "WHY DO WE KEEP ON SINGING THE SAME SONGS OVER AND OVER AGAIN?"

note: talent doesn´t grow in a garage or live inside your favourite drug or inside your new pants and surely your degenerated look-a-like friends are not a big source of inspiration either. get a life. grab you chance. do it. work for it. try hard. at least some geek will listen to you - in guatemala or on the orkney islands. have your 15 sec. of fame and die - you human moth.

Pianist/composer Giovanni Di Domenico formed this trio because of the extremely special quality of the sound he wanted to achieve within a musical group, and the choice of the musicians involved in it is extremely related to that special quality.

Clinamen, in ancient roman philosopher Lucretius’s ‘De Rerum Natura’, is the magic force that makes an atom to change direction during it’s fall and thus be able to hit other atoms and ‘create’ Energy and Life.It’s not a law, it happens by ‘chance’…

This new exploratory musical unit takes inspiration from Lucretius’s theory to create melodies and sound scapes, to play with the inner and most special matter of the “sound” of each and all of the 3 members. Di Domenico’s open compositions will be integrated by Henriksen’s and Yamamoto’s extreme transparent approach to their instrument, making them breath and have an extra special quality.

Giovanni Di Domenico :

Giovanni Di Domenico was born in Rome and since his birth has been

traveling and playing music.

This brought him to perform all over the world in very different contextes

and musical genres, from modern jazz to free improvisation and

experimental pop, collaborating with very many different musicians. Among

them are: Arve Henriksen, Akira Sakata, Jim O'Rourke, Fred Lomberg-

Holm, Tatsuya Nakamura, Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, Alexandra Grimal, Joao

Lobo, Toshimaru Nakamura.....just to name few.

He has released many albums under his name and in collaborations with

others.

His travels and music are not going to stop.....

Arve Henriksen :

Born in 1968 in Norway, he has since worked and played with all kind of musicians all over the world, from the typical Jazz scene and sound of ECM to synth pop of David Sylvian to rock band like Motorpsycho. He is most well know for his solo and Supersilent albums on Rune Grammofon.

Tatsuhisa Yamamoto:

Born on Oct 25, 1982, in Yamaguchi, Japan. Tatsuhisa is a pure acoustic drummer who plays primarily improvised music.

OBX001 : P.V.Presents / The CK TheoryAs Pierre is producing, discovering or playing with so many bands and as he was coming every two weeks with something new for Off label boss Alain to listen to, he suggested him to direct an exclusive serie where he could share all this music with the rest of the world, and not only him.This time, he came with 4 different projects almost at the same time.It seemed then quite logical to issue a box with those releases as they had the signature, the producing, the composing or the love of the mentor of the series !Pierre Vervloesem is born in 1964 and has never stopped playing bass or guitar since he is 17.

His masters are Zappa, Adrian Belew and Robert Fripp, and you can definitively hear their influences here and there on all the albums that he has recorded.He is always saying that he doesn’t like jazz though there is evidently touches of it everywhere. He is a huge fan of John Barry (he did an entire album of improbable covers : ‘Plays John Barry’) Stravinsky, PIL, Godley&Creme, XTC, This heat, Fantomas and Perez Prado.

ORT001 : Caca /Sketches of Pain ( in OBX001 or available separately)Caca is the new band of Pierre Vervloesem.This new megalo delirious adventure is based on second degree, starting by the name of the band which, quoting Pierre, has nothing to do with scatology.Here, he renews his taste for big formations like he did with X-Legged Saly or still does with Flat Earth Society.With Caca, he signs a very interesting parody of Jazz working with two noisy quartets.The first one being guitar, bass, drums and keyboard while the second being alto, tenor, baritone and bass saxes.The composing is without concession, like a rock, sometime out of tune, but ultimately ultra melodic and reaching at times some of the best John Barry ambiances.Most of the musicians on the album (and live) are coming from the Jazz scene, which is also kind of fun for Pierre.The music is an heritage from the New-york scene from the 70-80ties but has an instant modern echo which makes you want to move your frets on it!

OPV003 : Codswallop / Grotesque ( in OBX001 or available separately)Codswallop is the new concept of Pierre Vervloesem.He wanted to record an album of songs for a change.He spended a week composing the music and the basic trame of the voices, then recorded the albuù with the help of faithful friends: Gilles Mortiaux on guitar, bass and vocals, Didier Fontaine on drums and Joris Caluwaerts (Zita Swoon) on keyboards.He then asked Richard Belgium to write the words and to sing on the album.Richard is a singer and stage performer living in Belgium with Belgian and British nationalities. He sings in French or English with equal sensuality and has been performing since 1979 in many musical projects.The music is a mixture of power pop, heavy rock and fun!A bit like the Monty Pythons were singing on the Red Hot Chili Peppers 's music!Codswallop is now knowed as Cunt since Richard is the only member left. He is currently writing a following album that should be ready by 2015.A review (in Dutch) from Holland:

OPV004 : The Claude Zac Ensemble / SSSHHHTTTTT ( in OBX001 or available separately)Everything started as a joke when Claude Zac mailed some demos to Pierre Vervloesem.Pierre loved what he heard instantly and proposed to Claude to record his music properly in his Fiasco studio.Claude then left Belgium for Chili where he worked for a year and had time to think over to theses recorded songs.Back to brussels, he definitively wanted to perform live and hired Didier Fontaine on drums.The later introduced him to the talented Eric Dory (guitars), Laurent Stelleman (guitars) and Gilles Mortiaux (bass).The dream of Claude to have an instrumental band with three guitars, a bass and a drum became then a reality.They started playing amazing live shows with a mixture of rockabilly/punk/rock frenzy: four boys in a line fronting a 'muppet show' like drummer!Being a proper band now, they went to re record all the songs.The result is a 17 tracks album of Michel Magne meets The Residents meet some of the best surf music and film music!The album was recorded, produced, mixed and mastered by Pierre Vervloesem who's happily presenting them in his P.V.Presents series.

OPV005 : John Koenig / John Koenig ( in OBX001 or available separately)John Koenig (born April 13, 1950 in Budapest Hungary), is a composer and conductor from a family of musicians. His father, Teodor Koenig was a pianist and a conductor while his mother was a writer and composer.After having been awarded first prizes for violin and composition at the National Conservatory of Budapest, he arrived in Brussels in 1969 and continued his studies at the Conservatoire de Bruxelles. From 1974, he made a number of international tours as a concert violinist and began to devote himself more to composing.In 1978, he received his first commission to write the soundtrack of Julien Landeau's film " Voyage sidéral". John Koenig has since composed more than one hundred scores for feature films and TV series, most of them never ever showed as they were all unsuccessful or directly became cult movies.As he signed a contract with a Hungarian label which made bankrupt in the mid 90ties, most of his music is now impossible to find.Since the mid 70ties, Pierre Vervloesem became a huge fan of his work and succeeded in February 2010 to find a copy of one of his most famous score that was composed in 1999.It was commissioned by the NASA for a feature documentary, but ultimately and like most of his other scores, was replaced by the music of another composer.It is a privilege for the label to finally give the place that John Koenig deserves and to give people all over the world the chance to discover his fantastic music.Pierre Vervloesem is happily presenting him in his P.V. Presents series.

About Off

Off is a Belgian based label founded by Alain Lefebvre in 2007.
If you want to download, click on any Bandcamp buttons in the 'Listen and download' page. For the rest, just click on the name of the provider you want to buy from in each Believe player under the album you want to download.
If you want the real thing, you will find a BUY button linked to Paypal at the end of each cd presentation. You can also go on the Catalogue page and click on the cd you want to discover. You will find again the BUY button at the bottom of the page. Or go on the Shop page then just go to paypal.com and order at:
order@stilll.org , just leave a comment with which cds you want.